''Isabella in Black'' (also called ''Portrait of Isabella d'Este'') is a portrait of a young woman by

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

. It can be dated to the 1530s and is in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

in Vienna. The artist and the date are undisputed. Beyond the museum documentation, there are repeated doubts about the person depicted.

Description

Depicted is a young woman as a half figure in a chair with an armrest against a dark background. She stares slightly to the left. Personal features are light blond curls, the (rare) eye colour light grey, flat eyebrows and a snub nose — overall not representing the ideal of beauty. On her head she wears a balzo (a fashion invention of Isabella d'Este (prototypes before 1509), but widely popular in northern Italy in the 1530s). Her clothes are dark, the sleeves green with patterns, a gold decorated shirt and a fur (probably

lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

). The canvas is reputed to be trimmed on the left and right.

History

The painting passed from the

Gonzaga collection The Gonzaga Collection or Celeste Gallery (''la Celeste Galeria'') was the large collection of artworks commissioned and acquired by the House of Gonzaga in Mantua, Italy, exhibited for a time in the Palazzo Ducale, the Palazzo Te, the Palazzo Sa ...

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

to the collection of

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (5 January 1614 – 20 November 1662), younger brother of Emperor Ferdinand III, was an Austrian soldier, administrator and patron of the arts. He held a number of military commands, with limited success, and ...

, where it is listed as Catherine Cornaro ''("Queen of Cyprus")'' in the inventory in 1659.
An engraving of a copy of the painting shows an inscription ''"E Titiani prototypo P. P. Rubens exc. Isabella Estensis Francisisci Gonzagae March. Matovae uxor"''. However, this inscription is three to four generations later and thus uncertain (cf. the mistaken baroque naming ''"Queen of Cyprus"'').
On the basis of this later inscription,

Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (22 January 1819 – 31 October 1897) was an Italian writer and art critic, best known as part of "Crowe and Cavalcaselle", for the many works in English on art history he co-authored with Joseph Archer Crowe. T ...

assigned the painting to a commission from the 60-year-old

Isabella d'Este Isabella d'Este (19 May 1474 – 13 February 1539) was Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whos ...

, which has been recorded in letters: Titian was to paint her portrait in 1534 on the basis of a portrait (now considered lost) by

Francesco Francia __NOTOC__ Francesco Francia, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini (1447 – 5 January 1517) was an Italian painter, goldsmith, and medallist from Bologna, who was also director of the city mint.Levinson:492 He may have trained with Marco Zo ...

in 1511. Isabella commented on the portrait, completed in 1536, with ''"The portrait by Titian's hand is of such a pleasing type that we doubt that we were ever, at the age he represents, of such beauty that is contained in it."'' The lost Francia original had already been painted 25 years earlier in absentia on the basis of oral descriptions and a third-party drawing. And the drawing is assumed to be a more than ten year older one by Leonardo da Vinci (1499/1500). Isabella obviously wanted to be kept youthful and as an (ex-)beauty. Titian's other portrait of the aged Isabella d'Este (''Isabella in Red'', today only preserved by a

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

copy in the same museum), had probably not pleased her, which is why this second commission is assumed.
In the 1930s, Wilhelm Suida and Leandro Ozzola opposed this naming as an idealisation of Isabella d'Este. Therefore, only artist and dating were documented as accepted by experts. In the catalogue of the ''Isabella d'Este exhibition'' in Vienna (1994), the painting was still marketed as ''"by the hand of Titian, the 'greatest portrait painter of all time', as the portrait that clearly represents her"''. The academic exhibition review again opposed: ''"but why, when engaged on so professional a face-lift, did Titian use so coarse a canvas?"''

Identity of the sitter

The identification of Isabella in black is uncertain. Nevertheless, the picture is uncritically circulated as the most famous portrait of Isabella d'Este, e.g. in books, probably because it is a Titian original (and the rest of the colour identifications are only copies).
Isabella d'Este was so famous as'' 'Prima donna del Mondo' ''and fashion icon that nobles asked to be allowed to copy her dressing. After her death, depictions with balzo were uncritically identified (or marketed) as Isabella. By the end of the last century, all colour identifications were withdrawn due to resulting contradictions. Exceptions are the three portraits in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which remain contradictory (see graphic at right): ''Ambras miniature'' (anonymous 16th century), ''Isabella in Red'' (copy by

c. 1606 after a lost original by Titian c. 1524-30), and ''Isabella in Black'' (Titian 1536).
Points of discussion in the identification in ''Isabella in Black'' are the lack of similarities and the lack of beauty idealisation. At the same time, Isabella's successor

Margherita Paleologa Margaret Palaeologa ( it, Margherita Paleologa; 11 August 1510 in Casale Monferrato – 28 December 1566 in Mantua), was the ruling Marquise regnant of Montferrat in her own right between 1533 and 1536. She was also Duchess of Mantua by marri ...

shows matching personal characteristics to ''Isabella in Black'' (incl. the stiff facial expression). And in 1531 her commission to Titian is also documented.
Leandro Ozzola alternatively published ''

La Bella ''La Bella'' is a portrait of a woman by Titian in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The painting shows the subject with the ideal proportions for Renaissance women. ''Los maestros de la pintura occidental'', Taschen, 2005, page 176, . In parallel ...

'' (in the

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

in Florence) as Titian's portrait resp. idealisation after Francesco Francia.Leandro Ozzola: ''Isabella d’Este e Tiziano''. In: ''Bolletino d’Arte del Ministero della pubblica istruzione''. Rom 1931, Nr. 11, pp. 491–494; download: http://www.bollettinodarte.beniculturali.it/opencms/multimedia/BollettinoArteIt/documents/1407155929929_06_-_Ozzola_491.pdf

Literature

* Francesco Valcanover: ''Das Gesamtwerk von Tizian.'' Rizzoli, Milan 1969. * Sylvia Ferino-Pagden: ''La Prima Donna del Mondo – Isabella d’Este''. exhibition catalogue KHM Vienna. Vienna 1994.

References

Weblinks

Bilddatenbank Kunsthistorisches Museum
{{Titian

Isabella d'este Isabella d'Este (19 May 1474 – 13 February 1539) was Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whos ...